GF14

Another one of those blogspost that happen or should happen or might happen every year. Is writing obsolete in such a case? It never doesn't surprise me how quickly the cityscape changes. So far it's mostly talk and talk. But it's growing louder and louder.

Last week, I noticed the first extra bicycle parking places being cleared. Yesterday a city communication mail to announce do's and don'ts for first time visitors. Today the first out-of-town friend asking when we hit the streets and a programmation up-date. From now on every square and every park and almost every bridge or wide wide enough ally will transform into festival terrain. And as every year despite myself I too become excited.

Ghent Festival!

That is supposed to sound inspiring but it really isn't. Let's stick to the language of the locals: Gentsche Fieste!

The Ghent Festival

For all official news: the official link.

For my personal comment on this year's edition so far: ...

The three dots should rightly have been replaced with the wellknown phrase 'see below'. But that would be as redundant as the entire explanation already is.

Despite the festival lasting for yet another 6 days, having been drunk in front of several of my friends, broke promises of not smoking; not drinking and not falling in love; barely having slept 4 hours every day and spending most of the monthly allowance I calculated for myself on alcoholic beverages I dare say it ust have been quite a long time in the past since I felt this great. I must be on the verge of being happy again.

Too much of a good thing can truly be bad.

Said the Raven*: " Never again." And for over two years it was true but last night, not even very far into that night the comsumption of such qualities of alcohol urged my intestines to redecorate one of Ghent's lesser (known) public squares.

Lest I learn moderation (soon), I find abstinence of all such foods, drinks and miscellaneous content described as a group under the name 'drugs' the one road left open for me. Feel free to disagree.

*Here meaning: me

GF- Final Day

And I was there! But alas not a single photo to prove it because the cable for my digital camera only arrived today :-(

Ah.

Sigh.

What can I say? I loved it. Among many many many things I could not have imagined a year ago, yesterday was a day I can hardly believe having happened even still. (< This cannot be a correct English sentence, please correct me. I need your attention.)

I took a half-day of sick leave to spend an afternoon drinking my new favourite beer at the Sint-Veerle Square watching/listening to a coverband-wannabe-cabaret artists of such low level the horror I felt might have made me sick hadn't I been pretending to be sick in the first place.

And don't you think I was a good girl and went home straight afterwards. I had a lovely supper at a Turkisch restaurant, helped a friend of a friend finish his drinking coupons at Bataclan III, went to Baudelo park and swung my hips for a good half hour.

Had I not realised I forgot my keys IN the house when I was nearly at the house, the above might have made for a pretty nice day in the life of M.

Yesterday

Wake up, have nice conversation about hobbit cooking, drink tea, wave at beloved sister, walk to university, join election commitee for the validation of the student's club board I am now part of next's members, lullop on facebook, check mail, lullop on facebook a little more, go grocery shopping fix vegetables for BBQ, BBQ, be given massage oil, massage, swan song cantus*, enjoying summer eveninglike vibe at the central stairs of your faculty, massage some more, stop yourself one inch short of falling in love**, misdirect a stranger, walk home along the river crisscrossing your -for the time being- favourite place on earth, sip a cup of tea before going to bed, read the morning papers and fall asleep knowing your actually maybe very much already on the path of losing yourself and your heart again**.

Yesterday my troubles really really really seemed very far away.



* I don't even want to begin explaining this, so please please please; don't ask.
** It here concerns two different people.

Regatta

For some reason or other my university organised a regatta. Apart from the sunshine, the athletic males in tight sports outfit, the pleasant company and the excitement, I also enjoyed it because I won a prize. In the on-shore rowing machine thingy competion for girls I became third (very likely because only three girls competed) and am now the happy owner of a Ghent University T-shirt.

Conspiring

A conspiracy of bus drivers I call it. But the people of the public transport tickets and information boot are equally at fault; not once, not twice but an astonishingly three times out of three times that I ventured to take public transport in order to travel around the city I was-willfully- misled as to which tram or bus route I was to take and at which stop I was to descend. Once more proof that the entire world plots against me, and usually plots my utter unhappiness.

I have a bike (continued)

Three days of adaptation and my reflexes resemble those of a native.

Read: I don't brake for cars I expect them to slow down for me. I don't care about red lights or police vehicles, my only bosses are seven point five ton trucks. I have a right to sneer at pedestrians and motorcyclists alike. I don't need to get up early, I can cycle anywhere and going home for lunch isn't a complete waste of time. Hills were probably made for cycling down but nonetheless it's fun to overtake old ladies while riding uphill.

I so love my bike. Almost as much as I love my newest house mate. Almost. It's pretty hard to find a man so tea-knowledgeable whereas you can find a bike pretty much everywhere.

Will clean for resting place.

The title pretty much sums it up but you guys always want to know more so...

Friday I'm going to Ghent and I intend to stay there until sunday evening, meaning I will need a bedroom twice. Alas I already returned the keys of my old room but I haven't yet got furniture in my new room so I must either return home after the D'n'D session I plan to attend friday, stuff my backpack with enough energy drink to keep me awake and alive for three consecutive days, or bribe some of my Ghently residential friends with pesto bianco. Betting on three horses will in this case surely fail.

Things to make my day (or not)

A: The young and rather gallant Polish workman that greets me in what seems a Slavic version of my mother tongue, being in front of the building next to the library and being asked whether THAT is the library with two women pointing at the building that does NOT have the word library spelled out on it's rooftop in 4ft high letters, sitting on a bench along some flowing water and halfway through page 56 being interrupted by a stray dog that decides he wants to sit next to me with his head in my lap and doesn't even drool on the only jeans I have at this point, alternative plurals: Indonesia style, supplying myself with candle-making essentials, instructing people on how to varnish their wooden floor and a new Sue Townsend book.

B: The not so young and less gallant un-Polish workman that practically forces me to get out of my well-paid for dwelling so that he and his minions can take out a window, cover my entire room with dust, decide to wait with putting in the new window untill I back at around 1:45pm, make me wait for my lunch and tempt me to look out of the hole in my outer wall so that I have a direct view on one of the minions taking a leak.

Story of my life in a short anecdote

Everybody gets tired of staying indoors all-day don't they? So at around 9:30pm I decide to take a stroll in the park, if daylight and occupation level of benches allows for it maybe even sit down for a while and read at bit. ( Ach the lure of a newfound Sue Townsend book) of course it is June, even in Belgium this means at least a slight chance of agreeable temperatures at nearly sundown, so pretty much every suitable desirable spot was occupied. Never despair they say so I act the crazy eight-year old that I actually am and start taking pictures of bark and leaves, getting bored at bark five (I'm eight years old after all) I spot a quiet place an decide upon it. While moving at slightly higher than normal walking speed along the shortest possible line to my spotted seat I am addressed by a total stranger.
'Hey girl, can I talk to you?' I give him the look- expressing my resentment at being addressed as 'girl', make no comment but think 'You already are talking to me'. I consider the conversation closed and move on my way, he leaps up takes two steps towards me and says 'Can we sit some place together, I want to talk to you'. I cast him another look - meaning: I figured as much when you first spoke but I DON'T want to talk to you, and I say (in a very uninviting tone) 'I'm just talking a walk to get some fresh air, I should be studying' (which was only partly a lie). 'Then can I have your telephone number?' 'No, I don't give my number to strangers.' 'But this is the way people get to know each other.' Casting the yeah right-look. 'Whatever.' And I make for home mildly annoyed not being able to read a chapter or two in the evening glare.
This is what happens when you have too high expectations of men. I thought it was obvious that I was not interested in talking, that I wanted me-time and that in my eyes men are a life-form two grades lower than earthworms. I thought black men were good at body language. I thought evasive answers were preferable to insults. Of course I could have been clearer but smacking someone on the head seems such a violent way of saying 'Get you're hands of me and no I won't be here again tomorrow'. Is there a mathematical rule revealed to boys only in which 'girl with big breasts' equals 'cheap whore'? I mean, seriously, is there?

The Alternative Route

I had to walk to the 'other' more Northern* train station of Ghent today. As I got there much to my satisfaction a lot faster than I anticipated I decided to take a scenic route home, hoping to find on my way home a Turkish bakery to provide me with both a quick bite and my breakfast for tomorrow. Alas. The proposed scenic route very soon became the alternative route which is in my case only a euphemism for "I got lost but didn't want to admit it".


* more northern than Ghent's principle railway station, which is conveniently much closer for me to walk to.

Boekentoren

The title of this post translates as Booktower.

By it is meant a monument a 1-minute walk up my street.

Here's a picture:

It's made the finale of a game show around which monument in Flanders, Belgium deserves to get 1 million € for renovation. The Booktower will or at least should get this money because of its beautiful art deco belvedère (or so they say, even though I pass the bloody thing on a three to four times a day basis I've never made it to the belvedère and I'm not an expert on art déco either).

My whole point is: here are some youtube clips from people explaining in their dialect why the Booktower is so important, why it should win and what it means to them. Enjoy!

Two Booktowers afficionado's from my home province:



Two people in love with the tower and each other:


And last but not least, in some obscure dialect the vice-chairman of my student's club: